Andras Szucs v Greensquare Group Ltd

For victimisation under section 27 of the Equality Act 2010, a protected act need not be the sole or principal reason for a detriment. It is sufficient if it had a material, operative or significant influence. A tribunal rejecting the claim must make clear findings that enable the parties to understand whether protected acts played any part in the decision.

The separability principle is not an independent legal rule. A tribunal must first identify the decision-maker’s actual reasons, then determine whether an identified reason is genuinely separate from the protected acts. Where contemporaneous documents contain matters capable of supporting either causal inference, the tribunal must explain why it preferred one inference. Failure to do so may render its reasons non-compliant with Meek.

The claimant appealed from an Employment Tribunal decision, sent to the parties on 18 August 2022, dismissing his victimisation claim. The respondent admitted that the claimant’s grievances, early-conciliation steps and related complaints were protected acts.

The claimant had been dismissed without a procedure or warning. Mr Lillis, the HR decision-maker, gave no evidence. The Tribunal had contemporaneous documents prepared by him, a recording of the dismissal meeting, and the dismissal letter. It found that dismissal was overwhelmingly caused by performance, attitude and attendance, and treated the description of the claimant as a complainer as separable from the protected features of his complaints.

The central issue was whether the Tribunal gave legally adequate reasons for finding that the protected acts did not cause, or materially influence, the dismissal.

1. Appeal allowed. The Employment Tribunal’s reasons were not Meek-compliant. Even read benevolently and applying the appellate guidance in DPP Law Ltd v Greenberg, they did not enable the claimant to understand why protected acts played no part in his dismissal.

2. Section 27 of the Equality Act 2010 requires an inquiry into whether the protected acts were a reason for the detriment. They need not have been the sole or principal reason. The relevant question is whether they had a material, operative or significant influence. The Tribunal correctly stated that law, but its reference to the protected acts not being the “effective or substantial cause” was insufficiently clear when applying it.

3. The Tribunal had to identify clearly the actual reason or reasons in Mr Lillis’s mind before it could decide causation or separability. Its findings established that performance and attendance played a substantial part, but did not clearly find that they were the sole reasons or that protected acts had no material or operative effect.

4. The Tribunal’s treatment of the claimant as a “complainer” required particular explanation. The contemporaneous documents and dismissal conversation referred to grievances, complaints and unhappiness, as well as performance and attendance. Those matters could support an inference that the protected acts influenced dismissal. The reasons did not explain why that inference was rejected, nor why the alleged manner of the complaints was genuinely separable from their protected content.

5. The EAT did not find perversity. There was evidence capable of supporting the Tribunal’s conclusion, and the Tribunal had correctly directed itself in law. The legal error was the inadequacy and lack of clarity of its reasons.

6. The case was remitted to the same Tribunal. Applying proportionality, it was best placed to reconsider the limited outstanding issues, was familiar with the facts, and there was no basis to doubt its professional approach.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Appeal allowed. The Employment Tribunal’s dismissal of the victimisation claim was set aside for inadequate reasons, and the matter was remitted to the same Tribunal.
• Employment Tribunal: The claimant’s claims were dismissed by a judgment sent to the parties on 18 August 2022.